USS Midway

I had a few free hours before O'Reilly ETech started last week in San Diego so I took the tour of the USS Midway Museum. The "museum" is actually an aircraft carrier that was decommissioned in 1992. You start out walking over a gangplank to the hanger deck which has a few aircraft in it and get a headset for the self guided audio tour. I then walked around the enlisted sleeping quarters and the anchor in the forecastle. Since I mostly wanted to see the flight deck and the aircraft, I skipped the rest of the below decks tour. The flight deck was probably the most impressive part of the tour - they had a variety of aircraft (F14 Tomcat, F18 Hornet, A6 Intruder, a Sea King helicopter etc) on display. There were also displays with guided presentations of the arresting gear (for landing aircraft on the carrier), the "Meatball" that the pilots use to judge their glidepath to the flight deck and the catapult system for launching aircraft. From there, I took the tour up to the bridge and the flight operations center where the Air Boss directs traffic. It being San Diego, people were asking questions that started with "When Maverick and Goose buzzed the tower..." but it was entertaining anyway. The staff of the museum were formerly in the Navy so they have an excellent depth of knowledge on the topic - in my case, the fellow showing us around the bridge and flight operations center was a former anti-submarine warfare helicopter pilot who had served aboard several carriers. There are a series of steep ladders to get up to the bridge - it makes you wonder how people did it during combat operations. One thing is for sure, I would not have lasted long as I'm quite tall and there are plenty of places to hit your head on. I couldn't even stand up straight in most of the enclosed spaces. From the bridge, you can see across the harbour to the USS Indianapolis which is an operational carrier. On my way out, I headed down to the mess hall and some of the living quarters below the hanger bay. Wow. Low ceilings - after an hour and half of this my back was fairly sore. There is also a Russian nuclear submarine tour nearby in the harbour but I figured that would have even less head room so I waved off. My Flickr photos from the USS Midway